Flesh and Steel
by ncfan
Summary: A mother resolves to teach her daughter how to fight.


I own nothing.

* * *

When Galadriel had first approached Celeborn with the idea of teaching Celebrían to fight with a sword, Celeborn had agreed, but on two conditions. One, that Celebrían had to come in to her majority before Galadriel could ask her if she wanted to learn. Two, that Celebrían had to agree to this of her own free will; there would be no cajoling or strong-arming. Galadriel had expressed mild offense that he thought that she would strong-arm their daughter into anything, and Celeborn smiled and said that he _knew_ her. Celeborn quickly tacked on a third condition, that Celebrimbor must be the one to forge Celebrían's sword. If there was one thing Noldorin blacksmiths did better than any other these days, it was forge swords, and Celebrimbor was the only one Celeborn trusted to get the weight distribution exactly right.

In all honesty, the third condition had been the hardest for Galadriel to fulfill; if she'd not known that Celeborn wouldn't put Celebrimbor on the spot in such a way without good reason, he would have thought ht had done this on purpose. Celebrimbor was far from eager to forge a weapon of any kind. So uneager, in fact, that he had at first refused her outright.

Yes, he knew how. _Of_ _course_ he knew how; Celebrimbor had forged swords and knives aplenty for the warriors of Nargothrond, and he did not forget these things easily. But he was worried that the residents of the Nenuial settlement would look askance on him forging weapons. A condition of Celebrimbor's stay on the Isle of Balar in the First Age had expressly forbid him to do so; even during the War of Wrath, Celebrimbor had been forbidden from crafting a weapon of any kind. Galadriel would have pointed out that his passion for creating jewelry had raised more than a few eyebrows in the settlement already, but he looked anxious enough that she did not want him worry. Galadriel knew what it was like to be cut off from the things one loved.

Finally, Galadriel had persuaded Celebrimbor to do this for her and Celebrían. Like Celeborn, he had some conditions. Never again was Galadriel ever to ask him to craft a sword. That was easy enough for Galadriel to agree to; Celebrimbor was far from the only smith in the settlement who knew how to forge weapons, and it was difficult not to feel guilty when that tight, anxious expression appeared on Celebrimbor's face. Also, neither Galadriel nor Celebrían were ever to advertise that Celebrimbor had made the sword that the latter would now use. He would leave off the crafter's mark that he usually engraved into his creations, and they would not tell anyone that this was the work of Celebrimbor's hands.

With the ignorance of the young and the innocent, Celebrían had stared at him, perplexed, and asked why Celebrimbor did not want anyone to know that he'd her sword. It was a _lovely_ sword, she pointed out, and indeed it was, both practical and lightweight, with silver filigree fashioned to resemble cornflowers on the hilt and a blade that gleamed in sunlight. Celebrimbor smiled gently at her and told her to think about it. Celebrían paused for a moment, and then grimaced, and Galadriel realized that her daughter, though young, was perhaps not quite as innocent as she thought she was.

"Remember, Celebrían. For all that the Nandor like to treat it as an extension of the arm, a sword is a tool. A dangerous tool, one that must be treated with care and respect, but still a tool. It can do nothing that you do not direct it to do. It is cold steel; it had no life of its own." Galadriel knew some smiths who would have (vehemently) disagreed with her on that score, but they were neither alive nor here to hear her.

They had walked half a mile from the settlement, in the opposite direction of the lake to the green hills. Celebrían sat beneath an oak tree, drinking in her words and occasionally nodding to signal that she was listening. Galadriel would be teaching her how to hold a sword properly, and the proper grip to have in order to keep the hilt from slipping out of her hands at inopportune times. They did not have much time for anything else today. Galadriel had her duties in the governance of the settlement, and Celebrían was working with the archivist—the local archivist was a Sinda who was illiterate in Quenya, and Celebrían was translating documents into and out of the language.

"I understand, Mother," Celebrían assured her, and Galadriel felt a jolt of joy, as she did every time they spoke like this, at being able to speak Quenya with someone again. "I'm not to treat the sword as a living thing, but I must always be careful with it, because I could still do injury to someone by accident."

"Celebrían, in sword fighting, the point of it _is_ to do injury to someone," Galadriel said dryly.

Celebrían bowed her head, so that all Galadriel could see was her silver hair. "Yes, Mother."

Galadriel tested the heft of Celebrían's sword in her hands. It was much lighter than Galadriel's sword, and shorter as well. That only made sense, considering how much shorter than Galadriel Celebrían was, but it might pose some difficulties when it became time for them to begin sparring. It might be better to find a sparring partner who was closer in height to Celebrían.

_No_. If ever Celebrían had to go into battle, there was a good chance that her opponents would be bigger than she was. It would be better for her to first learn how to fight those with greater reach than herself.

"Now, your sword has a straight blade and is double-edged. I learned how to fight with a sword that had a curved blade and only one edge; I'm interested to see how your progress will compare with mine."

Celebrían perked up. "A curved sword?" she asked uncertainly, a dubious expression on her face.

Galadriel smiled wryly. "I doubt you've ever seen one; there are few blacksmiths on this side of the sea who still make them. In Aman, Noldorin blacksmiths made curved swords for the use of nissi. It fell out of practice amongst most of our blacksmiths once we made contact with the Mithrim Sindar and exchanged ideas with them."

Embarrassingly, though, at first the exchange had mostly been one-sided with the Noldor as recipients. In Aman, where the greatest danger any Elda would ever face came from another Elda, no one ever used their swords a great deal, and thus the weapons did not face the wear and tear of constant battles as the swords of the Eldar of Endóre did. The Mithrim had judged the Noldorin swords, those made for neri and nissi alike, to be brittle and unlikely to last long. Galadriel would have loved to have seen Fëanor's face when he was told that his prized swords were no better than a raw apprentice's work and would have been immediately melted back down for their metal, if they had been made in Beleriand. She could not imagined that the smith unfortunate to have to inform Fëanor of this ever wished to work with him again.

All of this should not have felt like a lifetime ago. To the Edain, Galadriel knew that the events of the First Age and the time before the time of Rána and Vása were not just a lifetime ago, but a time given over to legend and myth. But she had lived through all of this, and it should not have felt like such a long time ago. She did not know what to do to make it feel more recent. It was simply remote, removed, and perhaps it had something to do with the fact that there were so few around her who had lived it alongside her, and even fewer who wished to speak of it.

"Mother?"

Celebrían's green eyes flashed with curiosity as she asked, "Mother, why do you want me to learn to fight with a sword?"

Galadriel froze.

She remembered how difficult it was to get anyone to teach her how to fight. She remembered how difficult it was to convince her father that it was anything she needed to be learning, how difficult to convince him that those without swords could still die upon them and that it would not serve her well to be defenseless, if the time ever came in what was supposed to be a peaceful place that she needed to fight.

Eventually, Finrod and Aegnor had been persuaded to teach her. Both had been dubious, and dubious in such a way that Galadriel had found insulting. She had had to work twice as hard as her brothers in order to convince her father that it was alright to allow her to _continue_ training in sword fighting. When the time came for Finarfin's sons to be fitted for suits of armor, no armor was made for Finarfin's daughter. When the time came for Galadriel to fight for the lives of her mother's kin, she had had no armor, and fought, regardless.

Aredhel had had it worse. Fingolfin would not hear of his daughter learning to fight, and none of her brothers would go against his wishes. Aredhel _could_ have gone to Galadriel's brothers, but then Finarfin would have heard about it, and he would have gone straight to his brother. As a result, Aredhel had been forced to first watch her father and brothers train from a secret hiding place, and had then gone behind their backs to her and Galadriel's half-cousins, who _did _teach her as much as they could about swords in secret, and did _not_ tell her father about it.

But learning in secret, when they could spare the time and not be caught by angry, suspicious parents, was nothing like learning openly with a parent's approval. There were noticeable defects in Aredhel's style, though she would hear none of Galadriel's advice when she tried to give it. Galadriel sometimes wondered if, had Aredhel been a better swordswoman, there would have been some situations she could have avoided or escaped from.

Galadriel remembered how easily Nimloth, who had never held a weapon in her life, had died.

She stared at her daughter and remembered the dead.

"I wish for you to learn this," Galadriel said softly, staring at Celebrían so intently that her daughter began to squirm uncomfortably, "because though the thought fills me with dread, I am afraid that there will come a time when you will be called upon to fight. Too many whom I have loved died because they had no ready means of defending themselves. I would never wish the same fate upon you."

Celebrían nodded resolutely, and got to her feet. The sunlight gleamed in her hair and in her eyes, and for a moment she looked like Lúthien as she contemplated life beyond the borders of Doriath, standing on the edge of the unknown. Unafraid of all the perils the unknown had to offer. "Why don't we start now, then?"

* * *

Nissi—women (singular: nís)  
Endóre—Middle-Earth (Quenya)  
Neri—men (singular: nér)  
Rána—the Exilic name for the Moon, signifying 'The Wanderer' (Quenya)  
Vása—the Exilic name for the Sun, signifying 'The Consumer' (Quenya


End file.
